This time last year I hosted a Q1 reflective stock taking session that became very popular. Given how valuable people found it, I didn’t want to reinvent the wheel. Here is a link to that webinar so you can follow along. 
 
Quarterly reviews are an invaluable tool to see how things are going with your business. It’s an opportunity to take stock of:

• Your accomplishments
• Your learning
• Your focus
• Your relationships
• Your goals
• Your projects

​And also your numbers - - what have you been tracking? What do your Monthly Daily Trackers say?

If you are using the Coaching Business Builder there are 4 quarterly planners built into the guide. You will want to make sure that you review the monthly stock taking pages and carry your major learning over so you have a cumulative summary in one place.

Quarterly reviews are also an opportunity to look ahead. What do you notice about:

• Your annual goals and milestones for this quarter?
• The key activities you have earmarked?
• The one-off activities and tasks you have – i.e. renewals etc?
• Relationships which need attention?

The activities you want to do on a consistent basis (Note: One of my favorite quarterly events which got me into the flow of posting on Instagram was a 90-day commitment around daily posts). What are the tasks and activities you want to focus on, on a daily basis this quarter? Have you got your trackers ready? Now’s the time to pull them out.

I hope that you’ll take 10 – 15 minutes today to get yourself organized for the new quarter. Is there anything you want to keep visible -i.e. writing out your goals and commitments in a place that is visible so you can review it. Perhaps you put it on your phone or on a whiteboard or on a list by your computer. Remember the old project management adage: 15 minutes of planning saves up to 60 minutes of unfocused effort.

Enjoy your reflection and planning!
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton - GroupCoachingEssentials | Potentials Realized 
Instagram @CoachingBizBuilder
Join us for an upcoming ICF-CCE approved program including Group Coaching Essentials (8.75 CCEs), Advanced Group and Team Coaching Practicum (10 CCEs), or the PlanDoTrack Facilitator Training (24 CCEs). 
What's possible if you take daily steps on your business for 60 Days? Join our 60 Day Coaching Business Builder Accelerator program here!
Author of Effective Group Coaching (2010), Coaching Business Builder (2018), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013). Check out my author page on Amazon for all publications.
Email: [email protected]
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While many of us (myself included) are rushing to head out of town to kick off summer with loved ones and family, it's a great time to take stock of the first part of 2019. Have you built in time to complete your month end reflection AND Mid-year stock taking?

Earlier today I led my monthly month-end reflection session. Each month
I lead a live virtual session to take those interested through a 60-90 minute virtual planning session.

Next month's is scheduled for 12 - 1pm ET on Tuesday July 30th. It will also mark the one year anniversary of the launch of Coaching Business Builder. Bring your planner, and reserve your spot in this live one hour program ($39 US).

As a mid-year treat, I wanted to link you back to the 17 questions I posed a few months ago at the Q1 reflective planning session. You can view that here on YouTube - follow along - grab your pen, and journal, and use the questions to take stock of both the last quarter and/or 2019!

Enjoy,
Jennifer

Pick up a copy of PlanDoTrack (for virtual and remote entrepreneurs, remote workers and leaders) or Coaching Business Builder (for coaches). They are both a 12 month undated planner and self-guided workbook.

Jennifer Britton -Potentials Realized
Let's connect to discuss how coaching (1-1 or group) can move your business forward this summer
Phone: (416)996-8326

In both the Coaching Business Builder and PlanDoTrack, I include four business philosophies which are critical to all types of virtual and remote professionals, and business owners today – Focus, Experimentation, Momentum and Reflective Pause.

In my work with teams, and individuals, over the last fifteen years in my business I’ve seen that these make the difference between good and exceptional.

With this in mind, over the next few weeks I’ll be taking a deeper dive into the realm of these four areas looking at:

• What it means in today’s business context
• Why it’s important
• Ideas for putting it into practice
• And resources you may want to follow up around

​A reminder that if you like these topics you may want to check out my weekly Facebook Live, where I put into voice quick planning ideas and activities. You will find it over at the PlanDoTrack Facebook page.

Let’s turn our attention to the first topic of FOCUS.

We live and operate today in what is often considered an era of distraction. Our ability to focus and keep our eye on what is important to us, and to our work, is key.
Did you know that:

• The average worker receives 90 emails in the span of a day?
• It takes 22 minutes to get back on track after an interruption?

It’s not uncommon for workers (not just managers) to be spending 5-10 hours a week in meetings? I’ve met managers who wear the badge of
Focused work and attention are critical, and essential in order to create foundations, and grow a business.

How To- Creating Focus:

• Consider building in focused blocks of work – turn off email, move into a conference room, or take your work mobile. What will give you the space and time to do the focused work you need in your job/business?
• Leverage the circadian rhythm. Science continues to show that we have different times of day when we are at our best. What are those times for you? What can you do to ensure you have focused work times within those blocks.
• Create your to-do list of Top 5. With change being the norm for many workplaces, having a top five list each day is important. It’s interesting as the writing of James Clear has pointed to the early 1900s productivity hack from Ivy who asserted that a focus on a top 6 list every day would lead to productivity advances. Whether it’s five or six, being able to check core items off the list can help with efficiency and also motivation.
• Know your priorities – and your teams. Priorities also keep us grounded. They will help us shape our top five as well as discern where our time needs to go. What are your priorities for the week? The month? The quarter?

 
Refer To - Focus
When: The Science of Perfect Timing – Daniel Pink
Atomic Habits – James Clear
Outer Order and Inner Calm – Gretchen Rubin
Deep Work and Digital Minimalism – Cal Newport

Check out my April 3, 2019 Facebook Live 

Wishing you all the best,
Jennifer

It’s officially the end of Q1 of the year, and yet another reason to pause and take stock of your successes from the last quarter and some planning for the month ahead.
​
Looking backwards to the last quarter:

• What successes did you have over the last quarter?
• ​What major accomplishments did you have?
• ​What were key lessons learned?
• ​What habits or practices helped you?

• What role did planning play?
• What forms/templates and practices supported your focus and planning?
• What got in the way?
• What do you want to make sure you don't carry forward into this season?

Now turning to the next quarter’s planning:

• What are your goals for April, May and June?

• ​Narrowing it down, what are your top 3- 5 priorities? (Think - by June 21st I hope to have achieved)
• What time are you earmarking for planning?
• What time is earmarked for projects?
• What new habits and practices do you want to put into place?
• What relationships do you want to put more focus around?
• ​What is one thing you could do on a daily basis each day of spring to move your goals forward?
• What relationships do you want to put attention around?
• ​What do you need to, and want to take action on?
• What needs clearing up?
• What else is significant for you this quarter?

Finally...
​What pauses and renewal periods do you want to build in? Grab a calendar and schedule that now.

​What else will help you remain at your peak?
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Enjoy your reflection and be sure to update your Monthly Tracking Forms in the Coaching Business Builder/PlanDoTrack.

You will also want to fill out some new Quarterly To-Dos and do a weekly breakdown (check out pages 140 and 141 of the PlanDoTrack Workbook and Planner and Coaching Business Builder).

Enjoy the planning and celebrations!
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, PCC, CPCC
Author multiple books including the Coaching Business Builder Workbook and Planner (2018), Effective Group Coaching (2010)
Potentials Realized
Phone: 416-996-8326
Looking to grow your coaching business this year? Check out the Coaching BizGrowth Lab. We meet the 1st and 3rd weeks of the month for 1 hour group coaching conversations. Focus this month is on collaboration and building community. In addition to the group calls you have access to a growing resource library of monthly articles, templates and recordings. Join us this quarter or for the rest of the year!

Happy Spring! As we step into a new season, I hope that you will take a few minutes to take stock of the winter – your accomplishments, learning and achievement. Take a look at the Quarterly Review questions I shared a few months ago here. 

Today I wanted to remind you of the resource available to you here - the Weekly Sweep for Your Business. This is a one-page document you can use on a weekly basis to undertake a sweep of your work or business.
​
The “Why” behind this document is that regular actions clear things out. As we move into a new season, there may be more energy to get things organized.

If you haven’t downloaded a copy of the Weekly Sweep for your Business document, download it here.
​
As you will note at top of the Sweep for your Business, get you to outline your key priorities for the week around:

• Planning,
• Doing,
• Tracking

As well as key goals in the areas of

• Business
• Your Environment (home, office, etc)
• Yourself

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The next section gets you to outline your goals for the next seven days, with prompts for possible tasks scattered across the week. These include things such as – administrative tasks, outreach to clients/prospects, content creation, and taking 15 minutes to clear some clutter.

On that note, it doesn’t need to take a lot of time to get things into order. 15 minutes at a time can make a big difference to a cupboard, a table, a filing cabinet or your email. Set the timer and see what you get done in 15 minutes!

This is a document you can refer to week after week! Be sure to download it now.

Enjoy!
Jennifer

For several years I’ve talked about the Six Factors of High Performing Teams. It's likely that many of you also coach teams, or work with them in team development programs. In recent months I have had a lot of requests from coaches to share more on the six factors, and I thought that this blog post would be a great place to start.

Extending from the Team Effectiveness research, such as Hackman and Wageman, and Katzenbach and Smith, we know that teams which excel have a:

• Shared mission and vision
• Clear goals
• Clear performance measures – what does exceptional look like? What is required?
• Clear Roles
• Shared team practices – common ways to communicate, get clear on results and built relationships

As I have written in past Teams365 posts, the six factors of high performing teams include:
1. Shared purpose or mission (Your WHY) – Why do you exist? What do you take a stand for?
2. Shared behavioral norms - How you do things? What is acceptable and unacceptable on the team?
3. Shared commitment - What are you as a solopreneur committed to? What will you make sure you do, no matter what?
4. Shared performance goals (How are people measured? How do your goals align? Overlap?
5. Shared team practices - Teams that work together effectively share common practices such as a Monday morning huddle, a Thursday night out or some other regular event.
6. Clear Roles - How our roles overlap, align and connect?
(Originally posted November 3, 2014 - https://www.potentialsrealized.com/teams-365-blog/teams365-307-revisiting-the-six-factors-of-high-performing-teams)
 
Facilitating discussion around these areas helps with the alignment, and clarity, required for teams to excel in today’s ever-changing environment.

I hope that you will take a few minutes today to write out or capture the Six Factors of your business and/or team. For more on these, refer also to my 2017 book, Effective Virtual Conversations, pages 349 – 355. 

How might conversation and focus around team effectiveness benefit the teams you are working with?

​As you grow your team, what's important to keep in mind?
 
Enjoy your week!
Jennifer
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Hello October! It's the start of a new month and a new quarter. With this new month comes the start of the 4th quarter  of the year. Have you taken a few minutes today to reflect and capture your goals for the month and the quarter?

This week's blog post includes questions for you to consider as you step into October, Q 4 and the fall/spring:

What are your top 3- 5 goals this month? This quarter?
What will "wild success" look like at the end of the month? The year?
What's the ONE THING you really want to accomplish this month?
What are the key metrics you want to track (note: be sure to use the Monthly Daily Tracker AND/OR the One Line a Day in the Coaching Business Builder)
What's going to help you be successful?
What daily steps will create the momentum you are looking for?
As you consider the end of the year, what is important to put a focus on?
Who will be able to support you around your goals?
What key learning from Q 3, and September, can you carry into Q 4 and October?
What's the one thing you need to say NO to in order to focus?

On Friday I hosted my monthly "Month End Reflection and Monthly Planning Session". This is a one-hour program I run each month (usually the  last Friday of the month). It's geared to provide you with time and a structured live process to reflect on, and capture. your achievements and learning for the month, while also leaving space to set your goals for the next month.
I'll be hosting 2 of these reviews in October. I hope you can join me.

Mark the October month end sessions now - Friday October 26th from 3 - 4 pm ET OR  Wednesday October 31st from 8-9 am ET. Cost: $39 US.  Reserve your spot here.

Another project which is underway that you might enjoy following along this fall is the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series of daily questions I am posting on Instagram at the CoachingBizBuilder page. Every day until the end of fall I will be offering a different prompt. We're just at day 10 today, so grab a pen and your journal, and join us! 

As we step into shorter days of October in the Northern hemisphere, but also brilliant fall colors, I hope that you will enjoy the month!

Best wishes,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, PCC, CPCC
Email
Phone: 416-996-8326
Coach and Author of Effective Group Coaching and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching
Interested in more on this topic? Join me for one of the complimentary Virtual Book Club Calls to go inside the book! Next call is scheduled for this morning - Monday October 1st - 11 - 11:30 am ET - 9 Promotional Vehicles for Your Coaching Business. . Download the upcoming book club call list here.

If you are interested in growing your coaching business this fall, join me for the Coaching Biz Growth Lab, a coaching group for coaches. We meet the 1st and 3rd Friday of each month from 3 - 4 pm ET, providing you the space to focus and accelerate your business actions. Our October focus will be on Accelerators and Beliefs and Relationships and Networks, in your business. Come and have a focused Friday afternoon with a great group of coaches! More information and registration here.